From today's winnipeg sun,
http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/08/10/wheat-boards-plea-nothing-but-chaff
<b>Does chair Allen Oberg want a new fleet of combines, too?</b>
Canadian Wheat Board chairman Allen Oberg wants taxpayers to bail out his organization to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars because of contract penalties and pension shortfalls he claims will occur with the dismantling of the board’s government-imposed monopoly.
What a laugh. And what a pathetic loser attitude.
Oberg says the CWB will not be able survive without the longstanding law that bans western farmers from selling their wheat, durum and barley to whomever they please. He says it’s necessary to maintain this outdated, state-interventionist law or the CWB will fold.
And he wants us taxpayers to pay any grain contract penalties that arise from potential breaches with buyers and pension shortfalls for CWB staff. He asked the Harper government earlier this month to pick up the tab for the CWB.
Would he like us to buy him a new fleet of combines too?
What Oberg and his Manitoba NDP government counterparts are trying to do is convince Canadians that the federal Tories are dismantling the CWB.
The Selinger government has even taken out ads — paid for by taxpayers — to bash the federal Tories on the issue, largely to try to use it as an attack against local provincial Tories, who have nothing to do with the wheat board.
Of course, the feds are not dismantling the CWB. They’re simply planning to change the law so that if a farmer wants to sell his wheat and barley to someone other than the CWB, he has the choice to do so, just like wheat and barley farmers do in Ontario.
It’s called economic freedom, something Oberg and his NDP friends in Manitoba obviously don’t support.
And they’re the only provincial government in the West that is against economic freedom for grain farmers. The governments of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia all support federal legislation to end the CWB monopoly.
Supporters of the state-controlled wheat and barley monopoly say farmers — not the federal government — should decide the fate of the CWB.
I agree. And western Canadian farmers will decide its fate. There’s nothing stopping farmers from continuing to market their grain through the CWB. If the vast majority of farmers believe selling their wheat, durum and barley through the wheat board is good business for them, then they can continue to do so.
Somehow that message has been lost in this debate.
If the CWB is such a wonderful marketing organization for farmers, then farmers should want to continue to use it.
I don’t really care either way. Although I do support economic freedom for all Canadians and Canadian companies. I think it’s an important right worth fighting for.
Imagine if government told all Canadian aerospace companies that they had to sell their products through a Canadian Aerospace Marketing Board and were not allowed to sell directly to customers worldwide?
How about if we forced vegetable farmers to sell through a marketing board?
Doesn’t sound very appealing, does it? So why do we do it for wheat and barley, and only in Western Canada? Canola seems to move just fine in the marketplace without a single-desk system.
Most importantly, though, the CWB has no business demanding taxpayers bail them out of anything.
The CWB is operated by a board of directors voted in by farmers. They are not a Crown corporation.
They’re on their own. And they definitely don’t have dibs on taxpayers’ pocketbooks.
http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/08/10/wheat-boards-plea-nothing-but-chaff
<b>Does chair Allen Oberg want a new fleet of combines, too?</b>
Canadian Wheat Board chairman Allen Oberg wants taxpayers to bail out his organization to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars because of contract penalties and pension shortfalls he claims will occur with the dismantling of the board’s government-imposed monopoly.
What a laugh. And what a pathetic loser attitude.
Oberg says the CWB will not be able survive without the longstanding law that bans western farmers from selling their wheat, durum and barley to whomever they please. He says it’s necessary to maintain this outdated, state-interventionist law or the CWB will fold.
And he wants us taxpayers to pay any grain contract penalties that arise from potential breaches with buyers and pension shortfalls for CWB staff. He asked the Harper government earlier this month to pick up the tab for the CWB.
Would he like us to buy him a new fleet of combines too?
What Oberg and his Manitoba NDP government counterparts are trying to do is convince Canadians that the federal Tories are dismantling the CWB.
The Selinger government has even taken out ads — paid for by taxpayers — to bash the federal Tories on the issue, largely to try to use it as an attack against local provincial Tories, who have nothing to do with the wheat board.
Of course, the feds are not dismantling the CWB. They’re simply planning to change the law so that if a farmer wants to sell his wheat and barley to someone other than the CWB, he has the choice to do so, just like wheat and barley farmers do in Ontario.
It’s called economic freedom, something Oberg and his NDP friends in Manitoba obviously don’t support.
And they’re the only provincial government in the West that is against economic freedom for grain farmers. The governments of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia all support federal legislation to end the CWB monopoly.
Supporters of the state-controlled wheat and barley monopoly say farmers — not the federal government — should decide the fate of the CWB.
I agree. And western Canadian farmers will decide its fate. There’s nothing stopping farmers from continuing to market their grain through the CWB. If the vast majority of farmers believe selling their wheat, durum and barley through the wheat board is good business for them, then they can continue to do so.
Somehow that message has been lost in this debate.
If the CWB is such a wonderful marketing organization for farmers, then farmers should want to continue to use it.
I don’t really care either way. Although I do support economic freedom for all Canadians and Canadian companies. I think it’s an important right worth fighting for.
Imagine if government told all Canadian aerospace companies that they had to sell their products through a Canadian Aerospace Marketing Board and were not allowed to sell directly to customers worldwide?
How about if we forced vegetable farmers to sell through a marketing board?
Doesn’t sound very appealing, does it? So why do we do it for wheat and barley, and only in Western Canada? Canola seems to move just fine in the marketplace without a single-desk system.
Most importantly, though, the CWB has no business demanding taxpayers bail them out of anything.
The CWB is operated by a board of directors voted in by farmers. They are not a Crown corporation.
They’re on their own. And they definitely don’t have dibs on taxpayers’ pocketbooks.
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